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Monday, November 29, 2010

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. To me, that name stirs a very powerful feeling. I don't know what that feeling is called.

I was 9, when I first read that name. It was the summer before I started 4th grade. I remember reading that name and thinking that I'd never remember the whole thing, the whole name. It was a long name, and strange to spell. But I remember reading it, and finishing that book, and thinking that he was an amazing man.

The name somehow cemented itself in my head at some point over the last 11 years. I remember a time when I couldn't remember anything other than "Albus Dumbledore's full name is long." I don't remember when the name actually stuck with me though. When I realized I knew all five parts and could spell them all correctly.

It doesn't matter. The name means the same thing to me now that it meant when I was 9. It means a hero.

Dumbledore started out a kind, wise hero with twinkly eyes, and by the end of the series, his flaws, his mistakes, and his darker secrets were laid bare...... But he was still and always will be my hero.

Someone pointed out to me the other day, that in a sense, Dumbledore represents innocence and it's loss throughout the series, and in many ways that's true. But there's more to him than that. Even though in the end some of his really awful characteristics, awful truths from his past, and many mistakes are shown, he is still, somehow, always a hero.

How many stories do you read in which the hero is like that? I don't mean flawed. All the best heroes are flawed. But for a hero to go from flawless to best-buddies-with-the-darkest-wizard-before-voldemort? To go from sweet old man to a power crazed one? To go from twinkly-eyed to a potential murderer? From friendly to stuck-up? I feel like a hero with a dark past is a lot easier to handle from the get-go than it is for a hero's dark past to be revealed later. I feel like if that happened in most books I read, I'd be sort of....I dont know. Angry. Offended. I'd feel betrayed. But somehow, with Dumbledore, though I feel a bit of the sting of betrayal, ultimately, it doesn't really tarnish my view of him all that much. I think J. K. Rowling did a good job of introducing these aspects of him, without ruining him.

Mostly though, this is about Dumbledore himself. The character. Not the way he was written, but the way he was. And he's a hero, in my eyes, always.